Darkest before Dawn
by Warringer
Summary: Babylon 5 AU. Both Vorlons and Shadows recognize the potential of humanity. After abducting a good number of humans for their own gain, the decide to destroy mankind on Earth. They fail...
1. Chapter 1

Darkest before Dawn

by Warringer

Prolog

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There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), "Hamlet", Act 1 scene 5

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Life isn't the exception in the universe. Life is the most normal thing there is. Everywhere you go in the universe, you will find that life is already there in all of its facets. Be it classical carbon based life forms, living rocks, living matter clouds in interstellar space, whole planetary ecosystems that are alive and some even aware of themselves.

Whatever mankind has dreamed of as possible forms of life, it is somewhere out there in all of its myriad of possibilities.

In all of its existence of lifeforms and intelligent beings, there always is one exception. It is rather humerus that this exception is mankind. Many science fiction authors on Earth have used mankind as a race that prevails in just about every situation. How would they feel if they knew that they are right? That mankind is something special? Something that was created by evolution, a force that always tries to get the best possible thing, something that happens to be the culmination of evolutions strategies and successes?

You see, life and evolution are linked as are all forms of life in the universe. There aren't many intelligent races that know about this little fact. Now you may ask how life is linked. And you may think that the answer is something incredibly complex and difficult to explain.

You are right, the answer is very complex and difficult to explain, but there was the mention of planetary ecosystems that are alive and aware of themselves as a whole.

The whole universe in itself is like the mentioned planetary ecosystems, it is alive and aware of itself as a whole. That is the link. Evolution is something that is a little like cells in a body that let you grow. It makes life in itself grow and with it the universe get constantly more intelligent as a whole.

It is hard to explain and it may as well be hard to explain for eternity.

But it doesn't change anything. Humanity is something special. Humanity may be young compared to the universe, but she will continue to exist. She will always be there for the future, maybe even until the universe ceases to exist. Or humanity will be even able to flee the big crunch. In this humanity may have its destiny. It remains to be seen.

But humanity wasn't the first exception. She rather is the second. The first exception were the Old Ones. Beings that were born intelligent from nearly nothing during the first billion years of the universe when the universe itself became aware of itself.

The Old Ones were few and they were immortal. But they nearly ceased to exist as life as it exists now came into being. Now there are even less Old Ones in the universe than before and they need tens of millions of years to meat each other again by chance.

There are also a few races that dare to call themselves First Ones, but they aren't. There aren't really any First Ones. Numerous different races all over the universe have evolved at the same time. Many of them ceased to be after a short time, others survived for much longer, but the races that are known as 'First Ones' in the Milky Way galaxy aren't even one of the races that evolved in this time frame.

No they are much younger, but in their arrogance they called themselves 'First Ones', thinking that they would become something special. They are special, but nothing really special. There are a few races out in the universe that are older than them.

Chronologically there are a great many of races that may seem like they have only evolved fairly recently but as they are moving in giant ships between the galaxies at relativistic speeds, they are much older than they look.

There are also a number of sentient or at least living gas clouds and planets that are far older than the 'First Ones'.

But in the Milky Way Galaxy, they are not challenged for their title. Some of these races are learning that they are not 'First Ones'. But those have left the Galaxy to move beyond the rim and explore the universe, where they found a few of the races that were mentioned.

Two of these races however remained in the Galaxy, the Vorlons and the Shadows. At first they only wanted to look after the younger races that evolved everywhere, but over time they differed in their views how to look after the races and help them.

The Shadows embraced a view point that is best described as Darwinian or Chaotic. Constantly spreading wars, strife and challenges for the younger races they wanted to make sure that only the fittest of the younger races continued to flourish.

The Vorlons on the other side embraced the laws of order. Emforcing their views on other races they created societies that were largely inflexible and survived a ling time, but without very much growth eventually stagnating over time.

The conflict between the Vorlons and Shadows became more and more deep and in the end the two races, once closely allied became mortal enemies. Eventually they tried to prove themselves to be right.

None of them knew that the universe detested both total order and total chaos, rather adoring the order that was born from chaos in the effect of self organization.

This is where mankind came into being. The universe in itself noted the long and winding conflict between Vorlons and Shadows after several ten million years and numerous bloody and destructive wars between both races and decided to act in the end creating mankind as a huge asteroid impacted on Earth and killing the dominant life forms, dinosaurs.

But the universe only made this little change, not wanting to do more than this to come to a solution of the Shadow/Vorlon problem. The rest was done by the universes subconsciousness, evolution.

A very long term solution.

Mankind evolved on Earth without any outside interference save for evolution itself. Only in the last few millenia the Shadows and the Vorlons became aware of the humans. They both saw the potential of humanity and decided to change mankind to suit their ways. Both abducted humans from the world and settled them down on different planets far in the depth of space controlled by them, where the abductees would become what their masters wanted them to be. But even than it would need millenia untilk they came to a result, but both races were used to long term sollutions.

Back on Earth mankind continued to grow mostly uncontrolled, just now and than Shadows and Vorlons looked at the homeworld of their 'charges'.

The Roman Empire came and went as did the Dark Ages. The Industrial Era brought technological advances and wars started to become more and more bloody, eventually coming into the bloodiest of all wars the Second World War. Mankind dicovered and tamed the power of the atom, they went from flight to space flight and eventually they started to colonize space.

Both the Vorlons and the Shadows became more and more concerned about the humans on Earth. They were advancing much faster than any other race they knew of, including themselves. For them humanity dared to ask question they 'weren't ready for' at their young age.

Both the Shadows and the Vorlons needed a solution for this problem. They both independently discovered just how dangerous the not manipulated mankind on Earth could be. So they acted without each other knowing.

In the early twenty first century terrorism started to become a great threat to mankind, as was a new Cold War between the United States and China. Eventually incidents would come down to a nuclear holocaust. The Shadow Solution.

At the same time slight course change of an asteroid brought it onto an orbit that would bring it to impact on Earth and doing the same as the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs all those million years ago. The Vorlon Solution.

It was a freak accident that both happened at the same time. The Cold War heated up that much that China and the US needed only a hair fine trigger to press the big red button, closely followed by all other nuclear powers on the planet. The Asteroid on the other side was not easy to find and astronoms only found it as it was already closer to Earth than the moon just a few minutes before the first intercontinetal and interglobal missiles were launched.

As the asteroid slammed into Africa, thermonuclear detonations spread over the planet like a bushfire. In the end Earth's humanity was killed by the Shadows and Vorlons at the same time.

Or so Shadows and Vorlons thought.


	2. Chapter 2

Darkest before Dawn

by Warringer

Prolog Two

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Darwin Keller looked up towards the dark sky he was born and lived with. He hadn't seen it being anything else in his life. He had grown up with the snow and cold weather, the short periods that allowed to grow some plants to live from and the fact that he was of the generation that hadn't needed anti radiation meds as their bodies had gotten used to the radiation from the last War.

It was strange, he thought as he turned to look at his grand kids. They were more at peace with themselves than he had been in his life. He had grown up with the stories and movies of the old time before the War. The time when Earth had been a warm place with a blue sky. He had never seen the world like that, but still, he had the wish to see it with his own two eyes through a medic that was a good friend had told him that he would be blinded by the bright light of an old days sunny day.

Darwin shrugged. It didn't really matter anyway. He had lived a good life and he had been there when something like the old order was recreated. The Council, something that was like the United States of America of legend. A stable place for the children to grow up, without having to fear for their lives, not to have to worry about the next day and if you would find something to eat or a warm place.

And he had been there when the Concil had found the Monolith. A large object somewhere in the area that was once called Groom Lake. And he had been there when they found out what it was. One of the telekinets in the group had managed to find a switch inside the Monolith and activated it.

The Monolith had turned out to be a 'Message in a Bottle' from an extraterrestrial race that called themselves 'Senatrol', Teachers in plain common, which had been called English before the War. But it was also a 'Von Neuman' machine. Once activated it would copy itself and the replication would teleport to another place on the planet, where the whole thing would repeat. In the end more than a million monoliths were everywhere on the planet and everyone had access to one. And it allowed the Concil to form a much more complete sphere of influence, including all humans on Earth. Back than about fifty million survivors.

He had been there when they had found out that the Monolith had been buried in the Earth for several hundred million years and only recently unearthed by the nuclear bomb that had hit the old Groom Lake Base.

He had seen how mankind had grown to much of its former glory of ancient time before the War. How large hydroponics were build to feed everyone. How new technologies made it possible to survive better on Earth.

He looked back at his grand kids. How they played in the snow, not knowing how deadly it had been to Darwins parents because of the radiation and the plutonium and iridium in it.

He saw how his eldest grand son levitated a snowball and smacked it into his younger sisters face, not knowing that psionic abilities like his hadn't existed before the War.

Darwin sighed and his eyes went towards the video screen, something the Council had given to everyone three decades back.

The screen showed a transmission from Florida, where they had finished the construction of the _Phoenix_, a massive space ship that would go out into space and bring back the glory of the old days, when mankind had lived not merely survived. It had needed more than a hundred fifty years and mankind would live again, not only survive.

He looked over the large sphere of the massive space ship of two hundred meter diameter. It had many things that mankind had learned from the Senatrol Monoliths. Its shape was influenced by them, the massive sublight engines were build after the plans as was the surprisingly small Fold Drive that would allow to simply jump a certain distance between two points in space.

But still, Darwin knew that the Council wouldn't charge out into space like that. First the survival of mankind would have to be made sure. The War and the Asteroid had made sure of that.

One thing Darwin knew. Mankind would survive. No matter the cost. Even if a part of humanity would have to sacrifice itself like so many had done during the days after the War and the Impact.

Mankind would survive. Forever.


	3. Chapter 3

Darkest before Dawn

by Warringer

Chapter One

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Michael Storski looked down upon the gray swirly marble that was Earth. It was hard to believe that it once had been a a green, blue, white and brown marble. Now the planet looked so much like a sphere made of granite, the thick clouds from the War and the Impact still hovering in the upper atmosphere of the planet.

Storski hadn't been born on Earth, rather he was one of the second generation Mars born. For him Mars was home. The endless red desserts that were even colder than the snowy lands of Earth. When he first had been on Earth, the white stuff covering everything had been something of a shock. To think that water would freeze solid and fall down to the surface and not just sublimate in the atmosphere had been a little problematic.

He looked to the side at Xian Wai, a good friend of his who came from Earth. He came from the area known as Hong Kong before the War, but he didn't look that much different from many other humans of this time and day. He had the same pale skin color, red eyes and white hair. Back before the War, he, and the rest of humanity, would have been called 'Albinos'.

Another side effect from the radioactivity, like the psionic abilities of about half of the human population. Others were the immunity to most forms of radiation, including Neutron radiation, or metal poisonings. Not to mention that mankind had a lower body temperature and were able to survive much lower temperatures than before the War. Hell, Storski could go out onto Mars just with a unheated skin suit.

He looked back at Earth. The population had risen to two billion down there, thanks to the cloning and other reproductive technologies introduced by the Senatrol Monoliths. Like Mars had gone from a few hundred colonists to well over a hundred million people living in caves below the surface in the last hundred years, ever since the launch of _Pioneer_. Or the large populations in the Asteroid Belt, the Jovian moons or Titan.

The Council had launched a massive compain to populate the solar system after the successful first mission of _Pioneer_ to ensure the survival of humanity. Storski was one of those many who stood behind the Council on this one. Survival was one of the largest traits in the minds of humanity since the War and the Impact.

Storski sighed and shook his head. And now the Council thought that it was time to leave the solar system and spread humanity through the stars, making sure mankind would survive even of something destroyed the whole solar system. And he was the commander of the first ship that would leave the solar system, _Pathfinder_.

_Pathfinder_ was a different design to _Pioneer_ or the other vessels of the early years after _Pioneers_ initial mission. She wasn't of the spheric shape, but more shaped like a mixture of a spearhead of ancient times and the lifting bodies used as shuttles these days. With a length of two kilometers it was larger than anything previously build by humanity.

Even through it was meant to be a peaceful exploration vessel, she was armed to the teeth with a wide array of weapons. Mankind may have made bad experiences with war and the War, the Council still wanted to make survival sure of Pathfinders survival with everything they had, even if it meant adding weapons to a space ship.

"Okay," Starski said," Its time to go."

Wai nodded.

"Yeah, the Council wants the launch in two hours. We should make ourselves presentable."

Starski chuckled a little. There wasn't something like a uniform in the Space Fleet. Just a single patch that was worn on the left chest and had everything needed to identify your rank and position on it. Presentable just meant that they would get some fresh clothes before heading to the commissioning ceremony.

"Lets go than."

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Space bend and twisted as a glowing white speck of light appeared right next to the large moon of Kotok, a system held by the Narn. The speck of light glowed brighter and for a short moment it was brighter than the planets sun. Than the speck of light transformed into the massive form of _Pathfinder_ in a time that wasn't measurable.

The massive light gray hull of the ship shimmered in the light of the sun, showing of the sleek and flowing lines to everyone looking.

The sudden appearance of the large vessel, through unknown means, let the Narn patrols near the planet go into a state of near panic. No one had ever seen such a ship and no one knew how they had appeared. A number of heavy warships activated their drives and pushed towards the massive vessel with several gravos, weapons ready to shoot at the ship should it turn out to be a Centauri vessel.

On the bridge of _Pathfinder_ Starski looked at the various status displays surrounding him. Next to him Wai looked at his screens.

"We lost about an hour," Wai said, speaking about one of the side effects of the Fold Drive," But nothing we can't compensate."

"Anything for an update of the 'loose list'?"

"Not enough, we need to make a few more jumps for that."

The Fold Drive was a jump drive that dematerialized the ship and rematerialized it at the target, but each jump needed time to traverse the distance between the originating and the target point in space. During the dematerialized phase, there was no time going on for the folded ship and its crew, so they lost the amount of time, the jump needed to be completed.

"Multiple contacts," the tactical officer said," Unknown configuration. Propulsion seems to be a form of ion drive. Energy production based on fusion reactors. No gravitic fields or other forms of force fields. EM signatures locked and saved."

Starski nodded and changed one of his screens to show an optical image of the ships in question.

The vessels were massive angular ships with a dark brown color and red stripes painted over the hull.

"Weapons?" he asked fearing the worst for a moment.

"Nothing our sensors can see, through we got a few EM signatures close to the bow and the wings."

Starski nodded.

"Okay, run the First Contact program on every radio frequency."

With that a complicated math based sequence started, something that had been created to communicate with an alien race.


	4. Chapter 4

Darkest before Dawn

by Warringer

Chapter Two

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T'Kor stared at the screen of his Q'Quan cruisers bridge for the n-th time. He had stopped to count the times he had stared at the strange light gray colored ship that floated close to Kotoks single moon.

It had appeared from nowhere two weeks ago and hadn't changed position since than. However, it had started to transmit on several radio band frequencies using a code that was close to Interlac, a mathematical language that was used by many races.

It had needed a day until tachyon communication with Narn had come to a result and the orders to try and communicate with the unknowns. Interlac First Contact protocols had been transmitted by the Narn ships and after a week something like a communication was building up.

Informations were exchanged. It wasn't much, but enough to learn some about the strange ship and its crew. The ship was called _Pathfinder_ and the crew was coming from a planet they called Gaja, or something close. The crew called themselves Sounansha1.

Until now they hadn't shown their faces, but that was only a matter of time, as the video systems had proven to be incompatible. But it seemed that they made fast process in creating a matter of using video communication.

"We are getting a video transmission," one of T'Kors subordinates said," Its coming from _Pathfinder_."

T'Kor nodded, holding onto his chair to now float out of it in the microgravity environment of his ship.

"Put it through," he said and he wasn't the only one who was interested in finally seeing the Sounansha.

The screen changed from showing the huge triangle shaped vessel, and showed a being that looked like a Centauri at the first glance. But before T'Kor could say anything about that, he noticed the differences.

The skin color of the being on the screen was paler than those of the Centauri, even if it was a Centauri noble. The hair was completely white and not formed into the hair crest the Centauri males had, it was rather cut short and covered the whole head, hanging down, not standing up.

But the most prominent thing were the red eyes. Eyes red as those of the Narn. But that wasn't all. The eyes seemed to glow from the inside.

The Sounansha smiled, and again showed that he wasn't Centauri, as he didn't have the long canines of a Centauri.

The being said something in a strange language, and she screen showed an Interlac subtitle.

T'Kor presumed that it was a good idea, especially as the computer of his ship translated the Interlac into Narn.

"Greetings," T'Kor could read," I am Michael Storski, the commander of this vessel."

T'Kor nodded towards a subordinate and straightened.

"I am T'Kor," he said and hoped that the Interlac translation and subtitling worked on his end of the com line," Commander of the _K'Nor_."

The Sounansha named Michael Storski smiled a bit more.

"I am glad to see you from face to face," the subtitle read, but an alarm noise brought T'Kor away from reading the rest of the subtitle.

"Multiple Jump Points forming," a subordinate said and mentioned a direction.

T'Kor had dreaded this. It could only mean one thing.

"Dilgar," the subordinate confirmed T'Kors thoughts.

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Decades ago, the Dilgar had waged war across Known Space, years before their homesystem was destroyed as their sun went nova. The had attacked the League of Nonalligned Worlds and than the Narn. Numerous systems fell to the Dilgar Armada and billions of sentient beings died in the cause of the war.

In the end it was the attack of the Dilgar on Centauri space that halted their advance through the neighboring space and it was the Centauri Fleet that pressed them into a form of peace. The Narn never had thought that it would be a Centauti who would come to help, however they had to say that the young Emperor Turhan was different to his predecessors.

He had sowhat stabilized the relation ship between Centauri and Narn, but it hadn't stopped the Narn from hating the Centauti. The only hated the Ancient Enemy of G'Quan more than the Centauri and the Dilgar.

Even through the war had ended the Dilgar still fought against the other races, sending raids towards minor systems to take everything with them that wasn't nailed down.

Now a Dilgar raiding force had come to Kotok, one of the tradeworlds of the Narn. Kotok was important to the Narn, carrying about ten to twelve percent of the whole import and export of the Narn and being a traffic trade hub for the surrounding worlds of the League and the Narn Regime.

The Dilgar Raid would disturb this peace and productivity.

The Dilgar vessels, two heavy cruisers and several smaller frigates left jump space and immediately launched fighters, which went after the numerous smaller trade vessels.

The Narn force went towards the Dilgar force at full burn, leaving _Pathfinder_ alone and open to attacks of a Dilgar Heavy Cruiser that left jump space just after the Narn had pulled towards the main force and close to the moon.

The commander of the Heavy Cruiser noticed _Pathfinder_, assuming it to be a large freighter, attacked.

1 I just hope that 'sounansha' really means 'survivor' in Japanese.


	5. Chapter 5

Darkest before Dawn

by Warringer

Chapter Three

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_Pathfinder_ rocked as numerous energy beams from the Dilgar Heavy Cruiser slammed into her stern. Several layers of hull material were vaporized immediately, while other layers were heated up and held the energy of the weapons in bay.

There was a short moment of panic in the crew of _Pathfinder_, but it went by very fast as survival instincts of centuries kicked in. Mankind had changed greatly. Survival was something that was now deeply ingrained into mankinds genes and it was a problem to get against these genes.

Numerous circular hatches all over the dorsal hull opened up and half spherical weapon turrets moved out onto the hull, dotting the dorsal hull with heavy weapons. Force field bearings allowed the turrets to move faster than any normal mechanic system and the turrets swirled around, while Pathfinder rolled around to present its dorsal hull towards the Dilgar Heavy Cruiser.

Countless lenses of lasers and stubby barrels of particle and plasma weapons of the turrets pointed directly at the Heavy Cruiser.

The crew of the cruiser didn't know what happened to them, as meter thick beams of light, gamma and x-ray radiation, neutron and anti-proton beams slammed into the hull of their ship, tearing through the reinforced armor and than deep into the center of the ship, gutting it with just one salvo.

The Dilgar ship started to drift as it lost power and atmosphere leaked from the large wound it had taken from Pathfinder.

Another salvo of concentrated fire ripped into the armored hull, reducing the stern area of the large ship to molten slack. The third salvo finished the dying ship as it reduced the last part of the large vessel to not much more than scrap metal.

The fighters the Heavy Cruiser had launched before he chose to attack _Pathfinder_ now found themselves shot from the sky, as the heavy weapons, swirling around on their forcefield bearings fast enough to track the fast fighters.

The fight wasn't much of it. It was like someone shot a mosquito with the 'Atomic Annie'. The fighters hadn't much chance against the fast tracking, individually targeting heavy weapons of _Pathfinder_.

Not even two minutes after the Dilgar cruiser had attacked _Pathfinder_, no living Dilgar remained in the immediate area surrounding the human ship.

Than _Pathfinder_ jumped. It simply disappeared from the spot it had been, before a extremely intense light bathed the Dilgar and Narn ships duking it out on the other side of the planet, with the Narn loosing the fight.

_Pathfinder_ appeared from the intense light and her weapon turrets opened fire again.

Deadly beams from weapons, conceived by the mind of humans having a healthy paranoia born from centuries of survival and build with technology hundreds of millions of years old, tore into the two Heavy Cruisers attacking the Narn.

Another Heavy Cruiser died in the salvo of _Pathfinders_ weapons, before the Dilgar could even react to the attack. The reaction was to fire at the human ship. X-ray lasers and Plasma Pulse cannons slammed into Pathfinders hull, some of the hits destroying weapon turrets.

But _Pathfinder_ continued to fire, her weapons firing at the remaining Heavy Cruiser again scoring a 'Instant Kill'.

As the third and last Heavy Cruiser in the Kotok system exploded in a bright light, _Pathfinder_ turned to face and fire at the smaller Dilgar vessels.

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It was three days later that the Council of Survivors met. In ancient pre-cataclysm times, the Council Chambers had once been the seat of a ruling body of a nation of Earth in the small city of Bonn. Back than the Chambers of the Council had been called the 'Waterworks' and had housed the Bundestag of the Federal Republic of Germany.

There were about a hundred members of the Council and at this important meeting they had all come together on a matter _Pathfinder_ had brought up.

For the last few years _Pathfinder_ had provided the Council and humanity, or Sounansha as they called themselves now in these post-cataclysm times, with a great many of informations.

_Pathfinder_ had visited many of the nearby systems and found numerous places that were predistinated for colonization. In some of the systems Pathfinder had found strange artifacts floating in deep space, close to an inhabitable planet, as the crew of the ship hadn't been able to find out what these artifacts were, colonization of the planets nearby had been postponed until it was found out what the artifacts were.

Some of the worlds had been colonized and the people send there thrived on their new home worlds.

But now something had happened that needed the full Councils evaluation. Two weeks ago _Pathfinder_ had announced that they had meet alien life forms capable of interstellar flight. First Contact had been made as the scientists had predicted. But than something had happened that showed that not all aliens were friendly like the 'Narn'.

The Kotok system where _Pathfinder_ had met with the Narn, had been attacked by another alien race. The Narn had provided _Pathfinder_ with some information about this other race, calling them Dilgar.

The Dilgar had attacked _Pathfinder_ and the human ship had all but destroyed the Dilgar force, but she hadn't done so without damage.

The Council was busy reviewing he information they had gotten from the Narn. The Dilgar had attacked surrounding space and there had been a war between the Narn and the Dilgar, with the Dilgar also attacking several other races, called the League of Nonalligned Worlds by the Narn, and a race called Centauri.

The war had drawn over years and only stopped some years ago, because of the Centauri. But even than the Dilgar attacked systems of the League and the Narn constantly.

The Council saw itself faced with a race that was a threat. If they ever found the location of the Sol system or any of the outer colonies, the Dilgar would come and wage war.

They had already proved that they would attack an unknown ship by attacking _Pathfinder_. They would clearly attack a human colony if they had the chance.

Survival instincts came through in the members of the Council.

The Dilgar were a threat to humanities survival. They needed to be dealt with before they could find out where humanity lived and destroyed human settlements.

But the Council hadn't much they could use to minimize the treat of the Dilgar. _Pathfinder_ was the only vessel that was capable of extended journeys into other systems and capable of ensuring the survival of its crew. Even than it had cost the lives of ten crewmen to destroy the Dilgar vessels.

They needed more ships like _Pathfinder_. They needed ships that were capable of mounting more weapons.

Humanity needed warships to make sure that they were to survive.


	6. Chapter 6

Darkest before Dawn

by Warringer

Chapter Three

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Katai Imura looked out of a view port and down onto the red orb that was his homeworld. Mars had been the first planet to be colonized by the Sounansha, as mankind now called themselves.

It had been ten years ago, since _Pathfinder_ had discovered sentient alien beings. And a threat to the survival of the Sounansha as a whole.

_Pathfinder_ had continued to explore after the battle of Kotok and a while she had expored the Jump Gate network, been the target of several Dilgar raids, much like her sisterships that had been send out after Kotok to make contact with the races of the League of Nonalligned Worlds and the Centauri.

The Centauri had turned out to be a rather arrogant race of human like sentients and very degenerated. Even if they had expansionistic tendencies, the Council didn't see a threat in them. They were degenerated and they wouldn't survive the next three centuries, at least in the projections of the Council.

The other races also weren't a threat. The Narn and several of the League races had grown very close to the Sounansha that had been send to their worlds. These races had made similar experiences. They had been faces with extinction and they still survived. The Narn by the hands of the Centauri, the other races by the hands of the Dilgar. Races like the Gaim or the Vree.

But the times hadn't only been times in which the Sounansha had made friends with the Narn and the League, they had also been times of preparation.

Preparation towards the destruction of a threat to the Sounansha as a whole, the Dilgar. Small scoutships were the first that had been build. Protected by Stealth technology and using sensors coming from the obelisks, they had been send towards the worlds and systems in Dilgar occupied space.

Imura was still a bit puzzled just why only one out of five systems in a given area of space had a Jump Gate. There were so many worlds in between some of them having spawned sentient life. Imura knew of one race of beings that were on the same stage as the Sounansha had been before the Cataclysm.

Far Point Station was orbiting a lush world full of life that was in the middle of Dilgar occupied space, but lacked a Jump Gate for Dilgar and the other races to reach.

Far Point, the worlds beneath the station was like Earth had been before the Cataclysm and settlers had already spread across the world.

But Far Point wasn't only a colony, Far Point Station was the host of the First and Second Defense Fleets, consisting of fifty massive vessels that had been build during the last ten years, only for the purpose of destroying the threat the Dilgar presented to the Sounansha.

It was only a matter of a few weeks until the Council their okay for the first mission of the First Survival War, as some people in the fleet had called it even before it had started.

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Fifty specks of light slowly lightened up in the system of Alaca. The light coming from these specks increased until they reached a brightness that overpowered the glare of the systems sun. As the lights disappeared the left fifty massive spherical shapes in their wake.

Six of these massive spheres had a diameter of more than eight kilometers. Smaller spheres accompanied the large spheres, through smaller the smallest still measured one kilometer. They were the Destroyers.

There were thirty of these one kilometer spheres, covered by half spherical blisters of high speed tracking high energy weaponry. These were the Defenders.

The fourteen spheres between the smallest and the largest spheres were two and a half kilometer in diameter and they also were covered by half spherical turrets of energy weapons. But unlike on their smaller brethren, they were larger and not as fast while tracking. Those were the Attackers.

The six spheres lacked any of these massive turrets, the only feature that made them standing out was a hundred meter wide golden shimmering ring around the equator, with thirty massive fifty meter diameter holes in them. And this ring slowly rotated, while the rest of the sphere stood still.

The spheres didn't move an inch for the next ten minutes, more than enough time for the Dilgar in the system to notice the massive vessels and mounting an attack onto the unknown force.

As the first of a thousand Dilgar ships of all sized started to move to intercept, the spheres also started to move. Massive reaction drives, called Impulse Drives, flared to life, pushing the fleet of spheres towards the sole planet of this system.

Thirty minutes after the sudden appearance of the spheres, they met with the first Dilgar vessels. While the largest spheres didn't falter from their single minded course towards the planet, the smaller spheres fanned out to engage the Dilgar.

Massive torrents of energy beams stuck out from the Attackers, their massive weapons arrays scoring on the Dilgar vessels, each salvo destroying one of the feared Dilgar Heavy Cruisers or three of the smaller sized Dilgar vessels. The Defenders on the other hand concentrated their fire on the massive amounts of Dilgar fighters and the next larger ships, taking down scores of them.

Doing this, they created a save transit tunnel for the massive Destroyers, the golden colored rings speeding up in their rotations as they moved closer towards Alaca. They weren't concerned as several Heavy Cruisers managed to get through to them, hammering into the thick armor of the spherical ships and creating deep trenches into it before they were taken out by Attackers and Defenders.

The battle still was on as they slowed down and settled themselves in different orbits around the planet. The rings again picked up in rotation speed as defense fire punched into orbit, coming from the few ground defenses of the planet.

Than the first Destroyer started to fire. Fifty meter diameter balls completely made of different kinds of highly toxic transuranium alloys flew from the rings towards the surface of the planet at high speeds, each of these massive balls massing into the ten thousands of tons.

Where a ball impacted into the ground it completely destroyed everything in an area of several square ten thousand kilometers.

While the battle slowly died down around them, one third of the Defenders and a quater of the Attackers destroyed and the remaining Dilgar vessels fled from the system, the Destroyers continued to fling the massive balls upon the surface of the world beneath them.

The last of the massive balls impacted ten hours after the first ball had been flung at the surface.

It was but a small glimpse of the things to come.


End file.
